Creating a simple loop

[Darby Edelen]

[mikederk] “I have put all ten images into Comp 1, and then nested it into Comp 2. I added a “Time Remap” and then tried to loop it by adding the expressions “loopIn (“cycle”,0)” or “loopOut (“cycle”,0)”. [Not at the same time.]”

Are you extending the end of Comp 1 out beyond its regular duration in Comp 2 (say 60 frames instead of 10)?

You should probably use the loopOut() expression, also note that if you only type loopOut(); it will use the default values of “cycle” and 0… just to save time typing.

Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Mike Derk]

You know, I think I’m doing something even less brilliant. I think that Comp 1 is 10 ten seconds, so it’s trying to loop all ten seconds, not just the ten frames with content. I’ll check after my coffee hits.

[Mike Derk]

Well, I’m not making much headway. I’m just ending up with a bunch of pre-comps and no loops.

So, here are the steps I’m about to go try:

1. Make an 13 frame piece of footage. This is Comp 1.
2. Nest Comp 1 into Comp 2. Make Comp 2 only 12 frames long.
3. In Comp 2, enable Time Remapping.
4. In the Animation Menu, go to “Add Expression”
5. In Time Remapping, add the expression “loopOut ( )”
6. Make Comp 3, of any duration. Nest Comp 2 into Comp 3.
7. Play… and see a repeating loop?

Help?

Mike

[Mike Derk]

Yeah, so that pretty much did nothing.

[Mike Clasby]

Just to make sure we’re on the same wave-length, I’m assuming you have a 10 sec clip with the last 10 frames of animation and you want those last 10 frames to loop forever. Try this, a little split layer, time remap, add and remove time remap keyframes, add loop expression:

1) Import your 10 sec clip into the main comp.

2) Go to the point in time on that 10 sec clip where the animation begins, where you want the looping to start.

3) Edit>Split layer.

4) Select the new upper layer (it should have that 10 sec of animation you want to loop), then, Layer>Enable Time Remapping.

5) This will give you two keyframes, one at the end of the clip, one at the beginning, actually the beginning if it were still connected to the original or whole clip before you split it. So if you haven’t moved anywhere on the time line, set a third time remapping keyframe where the split is (click the “Add or Remove Keyframe at Current Time” box, just below the layer’s eyeball). If you’ve moved on the timeline, selecting the layer and “i” should put you in the spot of the split, so you can set that third keyframe.

6) Now, select that first Time remapping keyframe, the one to the far left, where the original/whole clip began (we’re still on the top, split layer), and delete it. You should have two time remap keyframes left, one at the split, one ant the outpoint of the layer.

7) Add you loop expression (copy the expression, Alt-Click the Time Remapping Stopwatch, Paste, Click Outside the box):

loopOut()

8) Now, drag the right hand edge of the top/split layer to the right, as far as you want it to loop. The loop expression will loop all keyframes, the only two left, forever, well as long as your comp anyway.

[Darby Edelen]

[mikederk] “1. Make an 13 frame piece of footage. This is Comp 1.
2. Nest Comp 1 into Comp 2. Make Comp 2 only 12 frames long.
3. In Comp 2, enable Time Remapping.
4. In the Animation Menu, go to “Add Expression”
5. In Time Remapping, add the expression “loopOut ( )”
6. Make Comp 3, of any duration. Nest Comp 2 into Comp 3.
7. Play… and see a repeating loop?”

Cut out step 6 and alter steps 2 & 3:

1. Make an 13 frame piece of footage. This is Comp 1.
2. Nest Comp 1 into Comp 2. Make Comp 2 however long you want the footage to loop for.
3. In Comp 2, enable Time Remapping and drag the out point of Comp 1 out to the end of Comp 2.
4. In the Animation Menu, go to “Add Expression”
5. In Time Remapping, add the expression “loopOut()”
6. Play… and see a repeating loop!!!

Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA

[Mike Derk]

I’m beginning to feel like my computer hates me.

I followed your recipe to a T, and yet nothing changed. I even used different footage, just to make sure my original stuff wasn’t “contaminated” in some way.

Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that I’m not on an Intel Mac? I’m on a G5 Quad.

New footage: .mov file, 12 fps. Composition also set to 12 fps.

[Mike Derk]

I’m realizing my problem may lie in “making a piece of footage x frames long.”

I’m pre-composing a series of images. (It ends up being 3 seconds, but I don’t think that’s relevant.) Then I’m nesting that precomp into a new composition, but it shows up as 10 seconds (my default comp length). Anyway, I don’t know if this counts as “footage” — I could be using the wrong terminology.

Anyway, I used an actual .mov file, to no use. I’ll try again later.

Mike

[Mike Derk]

So, I finally got it to work, but here was the main issue: my footage was short, about 3 seconds. But I wanted it to loop for 20 seconds.

However, once footage on the layer runs out, it stops looping, and then runs blank for 17 seconds.

To get around that, I had to precompose the initial 3 seconds in a comp that was 20 seconds long. Nesting that precomp into a 20 second composition allowed the looping to go the whole way.

So, until I figured that out, nothing you were telling me was going to work. But it wasn’t wasted — now it works.

Thanks for the perseverance.

Mike

[Darby Edelen]

[mikederk] “So, until I figured that out, nothing you were telling me was going to work. But it wasn’t wasted — now it works.”

Yes it was… If you time-remap a 3 second layer you can drag the end of that layer out to infinity and beyond, so 20 seconds was definitely well within the reach. The last frame of the composition (according to Time Remap) will always be blank since Time Remap maps from the 0th frame.

That is to say, your composition had a duration of 3 seconds, which for my sake I’ll call a 90 frame composition (you may have had it running at a lower FPS but that’s not the point). However, in AE’s mind your 90 frame composition runs from frame 0 to frame 89 (90 frames, but starting numbered at 0). If you enable time remapping on this pre-comp in another comp then Time Remap will allow the values 0;00 through 3;00 (and these are the defaults with a 3;00 duration footage item) but the frame at 3;00 is 1 frame beyond the end of your composition and so is blank! You must change the last keyframe to 2;29 and move it forward 1 frame in the composition (so that it resides at 2;29) then drag the end of the composition out as long as you want and apply the loopOut(); expression.

FYI, even if you leave the default time remapped values at 0;00 to 3;00, drag the out point out (as I instructed) and applied the loopOut(); expression, your comp would still loop properly… well… almost properly, it would just have 1 blank frame every 3 seconds (which can be remedied by the above process).

[mikederk] “However, once footage on the layer runs out, it stops looping, and then runs blank for 17 seconds. “

It has never done this using the process I outlined in my previous post. Time Remapping works just like any other keyframed property, if you had a layer that moved between two keyframes from [360, 100] to [360, 300] the layer would stop at [360,300] and not move any farther… the same is true of time remapping. My guess is that you either didn’t apply the loopOut() expression after dragging the layer’s endpoint out because you saw that the time remap had stopped at 3;00 (a blank frame) and was ‘stuck’ there… or that you didn’t drag the end point of the pre-comp out beyond 3;00 (which you can do on a time remapped layer) and so the layer disappeared before it got a chance to loop.

Darby Edelen
Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA